Her brother Nic had once told her that guerilla fighters like these were called“chacales.”Jackals. Of course.
Raven whistled as they rode, something tuneless, as if he hadn’t a care in the world. He was content here, she realized suddenly, with nothing but the clothes he stood up in and his own wits, as relaxed as if he were in a formal London ballroom.
Heloise sighed. She’d spent years trying to shed light on obscure codes and illuminate dark corners. Raven had spent the same time learning the art of concealment.
Undulating foothills gave way to fertile valleys and steep-sided trails as they rode, the snow-capped peaks of the Pyrenees appearing on the horizon. The bleating of animals and the tinkle of bells heralded their approach to the gypsy encampment. Two men carrying a pole with the carcass of a goat tied onto it hailed Alejandro from the trail.
The gypsy led the way to a wooded clearing, where an odd assortment of brightly colored canvas tents and caravans had been drawn up around a central fire. Children chased one another about the trees and several men and women sat on the steps of their caravans.
Heloise peered around in fascination. The caravans were all garishly decorated, their spoked wheels picked out in yellow or cornflower blue, while every inch of their exteriors had been painted with an assortment of flowers, birds, and other fanciful embellishments.
Several women ran over and greeted their men. One woman practically dragged Antonio from his horse by tugging on his waistcoat and planted a huge kiss on his mouth. Federico’s lady exclaimed over a tear in his breeches. Raven was greeted with joyous shouts and exclamations—handshakes and friendly punches from the men and extremely familiar kisses and hugs from the women.
And then they noticed the newcomer and Heloise blushed as she became the center of attention. The gypsy women crowded round, apparently fascinated by her pale skin and freckles and the fact that she was wearing boys’ clothes. One girl touched her hair reverently and said something. They all nodded and laughed.
Heloise turned to Raven for translation. “What did she say?”
“She called you‘Luz.’It means light.”
“Oh.”
“The gypsies refer to themselves ascales. ‘Calo’means black.” He touched his own dark hair. “You and I are bothpayllos,which is a word they use to describe anyone not of the gypsy race.”
He spoke with one of the women in rapid Spanish and then nodded. “Go with Maria. They’ll show you to a caravan to sleep in.”
“That’s very kind.” Heloise smiled warmly at the woman, trying to make herself understood despite the language barrier. “Thank you very much.”
The women led her to a caravan set among the trees, a little way from the fire. The exterior was a gaudy apple green with yellow trim. Almost every inch of the surface was decorated with painted roses and flowers, castles, curling scrolls, pierced fretwork, and arched frills. It looked like something out of a fairy tale. Heloise mounted the steps set between the lowered shanks and peered inside.
The arched ceiling had been painted to depict the night sky, a deep midnight blue flecked with golden stars. A raised bed took up the entire far end, piled high with jewel-toned cushions. A padded bench sat below a window on the right wall, and a tiny iron wood-burning stove and more cupboards lined the left one. Various utensils, frying pans, mugs, and bunches of dried flowers hung from hooks on the walls and the ceiling beams.
One of the women brought Heloise’s satchel and filled a bowl with water. The ladies showed no inclination of leaving her alone, so Heloise washed her hands and face. With her blue dress still unmended, she withdrew her only other option, the sadly creased—but clean—white evening dress, the one she’d last worn to Raven’s ball.
A little embarrassed at having an audience, she stripped off her shirt and breeches to reveal her silk drawers and matching lace-edged shift, which drew a ripple of appreciative gasps. Heloise realized they were as intrigued by the foreignness of her clothing as she was by theirs. Language was irrelevant—the exclamations of women admiring one another’s outfits crossed barriers of race and fortune.
With reverent fingers the girls touched the straps of thin ribbon tied in bows on each shoulder and the embroidered hem of her chemise, exclaiming over the quality of the lace, the fineness of the silk. They admired her figure, too, using shaping actions with their hands to remark on the narrowness of her waist and the pertness of her breasts. From that they proceeded to tease her about her freckles. Their own skin was olive brown and smooth, their straight, long hair the black-blue sheen of a raven’s wing.
Heloise blushed furiously, but cherished the sense of feminine solidarity. Having grown up with three brothers, it was rather nice to have some purely female interaction.
She reached for the white dress but it was snatched from her with much shaking of heads and miming of potential disasters, which she eventually understood to mean that she shouldn’t wear such a fine thing outside by the fire, where it might get ruined. One of the younger women went out and reappeared with a bundle of clothes. Heloise’s protests were brushed aside, so she gave in with good grace and allowed them to dress her in the long skirt, ruched peasant top, and loose embroidered corset—worn, oddly, over, not under, the shirt.
Twilight had fallen by the time they emerged from the caravan and Heloise glanced around, looking for Raven. She found him deep in conversation with Alejandro on the other side of the camp, so she allowed the women to drag her to the fire and accepted a bowl of soup with a smile of thanks.
—
Raven knew the exact moment Heloise came out of the caravan.
He took one look at her, dressed in her gypsy clothes, and scowled. They weren’t much of an improvement on the breeches. Her breasts spilled from the top of the blouse, peachy and pale, pushed up by some fiendishly effective external corset. His body, naturally, hardened to the point of discomfort. The damn woman could wear a flour sack and he’d still want her.
She’d left her hair loose, too. The firelight caught the long strands, highlighting copper streaks and flashes of burnished gold around her head, like sparks. The glow licked over her, caressing all the parts he wanted to touch, while leaving other bits mysteriously shadowed in a sublime juxtaposition of darkness and light.
He wanted to be the one turning her cheeks pink.
The sun had brought out even more of her freckles; he imagined tracing them with his tongue, dragging her into some dark corner and putting his hands on her skin.
One of the men picked up a guitar and began to strum. Another joined in, a cheering song about bandits and robbers picking off members of a party on their travels. Raven sighed. Nice tales of murder. Heloise looked delighted, probably because she had no idea about the gruesome subject matter. The next song was no better, about a woman crossed in love and dying for passion. Raven rolled his eyes at the melodrama.
Maria demanded a dance and the musicians began a rhythmic hand clap. Alejandro began a crooning chant to accompany the strum of the guitar, while Maria clicked her fingers and twirled in the firelight, swishing her skirts and twisting her body in a sinuous flamenco. The fringed shawl around her hips flared out as she spun, arms raised, heels stamping in the dust, black hair way past her hips.